Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83 v7 ucbtopaz-1.8; site ucbtopaz.CC.Berkeley.ARPA Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!mhuxr!mhuxt!houxm!whuxl!whuxlm!harpo!decvax!ucbvax!ucbtopaz!mwm From: mwm@ucbtopaz.CC.Berkeley.ARPA Newsgroups: net.politics.theory Subject: Re: Capitalist production Message-ID: <836@ucbtopaz.CC.Berkeley.ARPA> Date: Wed, 20-Mar-85 22:13:07 EST Article-I.D.: ucbtopaz.836 Posted: Wed Mar 20 22:13:07 1985 Date-Received: Sat, 23-Mar-85 00:33:58 EST References: <370@gargoyle.UChicago.UUCP> <5252@utzoo.UUCP> <4985@ukc.UUCP> Reply-To: mwm@ucbtopaz.UUCP (Praiser of Bob) Organization: Missionaria Phonibalonica Lines: 71 Summary: In article <4985@ukc.UUCP> ncg@ukc.UUCP (Nigel Gale) writes: >Please flame me. Ok :-). >JoSH didn't borrow the money, he inherited it. Not in my libertarian society, he didn't. The dead don't have property rights to be violated, so they can't state what the money should be used for. >And having got so much money in the first place, he can inevitably >borrow more than the bloke in the next town. Yes, but he can't borrow as much as the bloke in the second town over who has a successful track record with start-up firms. >So JoSH starts off by building a factory, fully automated with >one employee to watch the coloured lights flash. >The cottage industry in the next town never has a chance. Which results in: >Overall, the is being made faster, better & cheaper. And this is a bad thing. Apparently Josh, by providing more surplus for everybody to use (he gets the bulk of it, and deservedly so), has sinned according to the socialist bible. I'll think I'll take the Christians. >But no-one can compete unless they have the big money to start with. > ~~~ Right. Just ask The Woz, Bill Gates, either Hewlett or Packard, or the man who drives the "visi-car." In an era when cottage firms are turning into multi-megabuck corporations as never before, I find it hard to believe that anyone can make that statement with a straight face. >Giving the lower social groupings the supposed possibility of >advancement, while in fact providing no real means of doing so, >is distinctly remnicient of Dark Ages European libertarianism. Of course, insisting that somebody display diligence, responsibility, and an ability to fulfill their commitments is not quite the same as "providing no real means of doing so." I will concede that those born and raised in the current crop of ghettos are never encouraged to develop those qualities. Living in a ghetto doesn't cause this problem in and of itself - just ask any elderly Jew - so the solution isn't eliminating the ghetto. Possibly taking the kids out of the ghetto at a tender age and raising them to have those qualities will do, but I hope that the socialists will find that idea almost as abhorrent as I do. >The nobleman owned the land. The peasants needed to use the >land in order to live. They were quite free (sometimes) to move >away onto someone else's land, and pay someone else rent. >But the only peasants who ever advanced from 'peasant' status >were those who joined the army and got some money or the favour >of their liege lord from battle. >This really does look like libertarianism in practice, to me. The feudal system is an equally good example of socialism in practice. The noblemen ran all the land (minus a few times) for the good of everybody living on it, and wealth was redistributed fairly by the noblemen. See how easy it is to distort a system to look like your opposition by ignoring pertinent facts? I think we can all agree that "authoritarian dictatorship" is a much better description of a feudal state than either "libertarian in practice" or "socialist in practice."